Crooked Branch (9781101615072)

by Cummins, Jeanine

  “She does seem a bit odd.” Ginny sniffed, blowing her nose into his handkerchief again.

  “Oh, she’s mad as a March hare,” he said.

  “She’d want to be, to take me on in this state.”

  Seán hummed again, stood up, and clasped his hands behind him in the dark. “I’ll do it,” he said.

  “You’ll do what?” Ginny looked up at him. “I haven’t even asked you yet.”

  “I’ll look in on your children, make sure they’re all right, keep an eye out,” he said. “I’m out on the roads at least every other day, I’m the only one from Springhill who’s allowed free travel. She keeps everyone else under lock and key. But I can run messages for you.”

  Ginny breathed carefully, her heart flying like that arcing star. “They need food,” she said.

  “Of course.”

  It was dangerous, what she was asking him to do. If Murdoch or Mrs. Spring got wind of it, he’d lose his job no question—they might even see him transported. But even worse, carrying food in these times was downright unsafe. Since the famine had deepened, there had already been drivers killed by starving natives in Mullingar and Strokestown, just for a chance at the provisions they might be carrying.

  “You’re sure?” Ginny said. “It’s an awful risk, Seán, and nobody would fault you—”

  “I would fault me,” he interrupted, and then he sat down again, by her side. “How could I live with myself if I didn’t do this? Of course I’ll do it.”

  “Thank you,” she whispered, and she had nothing more to give him, only that.

  “Yeah, to hell with it,” he said, slapping his thighs. “Where’s the fun in living a safe, easy life anyway?” He stood up abruptly from the bench. “We should get you inside, Ginny. Jesus, with the baby coming and all, and you out here in the freezing cold.”

  “I’m all right,” she said, but she stood up, too, and it was true that her teeth were chattering. They started back up the path toward Springhill House, and Ginny could see the light dancing out merrily from the stables. Before she crept back up the lawns toward the French doors, she thanked him again.

  “Do you think you might go tomorrow?” she asked. “I wouldn’t press, only they’re so hungry. I’m awful worried over them.”

  He shook his head. “Tomorrow, no,” he said. “There’s no messages tomorrow.”

  Her heart plummeted, but she couldn’t push him any further. She’d already asked for so much.

  “Ginny,” he said, and then he waited until she looked up at him. His blue eyes flashed in the windy moonlight. “I’m going tonight.”

  • • •

  She slept. Ginny slept deep and hard and guiltless and dreamless, and when she awakened, the room was lit gray, with a dusty shaft of sunlight leaking through the gap beneath her door. Someone was knocking. She sat up and smoothed down her hair, wrapped the blanket around her, and went to the door. Roisin was in the corridor, already dressed and smiling.

  “It’s laundry day,” she said, “no time to lose!”

  Ginny nodded. “Right, I’ll just get dressed.”

  “Quickly, dear.” She clapped her hands, and disappeared down the corridor toward the stairs.

  In the kitchen, the women ate eggs and cheese and toast with butter, and Ginny attacked the food with vigor. She was too hungry to feel guilt.

  “The laundry is heavy work,” Roisin said, mopping up the yolk on her plate with some bread. “But we’ll be able for it if we’re well fed, hah?”

  Katie ate silently, without looking up from her plate.

  “You’re looking better already, dear,” Roisin said, studying Ginny’s face across the table. “Fuller in the face, and a better color in you, your eyes a bit clearer. After only one day! Imagine after a week here, that baby will be fat in your belly. You won’t be able to move, with the grows of him!”

  “Please, God,” Ginny said. “That’d be a fine problem to have.”

  It was true that she felt stronger already, able for the work ahead. They bent to it without complaint. They stripped the beds in Mrs. Spring’s room, and Murdoch’s as well, and brought all the table and chamber linens down to the basement. Two enormous wash boilers were already bubbling in the laundry room, and the air inside was steamed, damp and warm.

  “Thank God there’s only the two of them here to look after, Murdoch and Mrs. Spring,” Roisin said, as they loaded the sleeping linens into the first copper boiler. “We’d never manage the washing for a full house. We’d need more help.”

  “But why is that?” Ginny asked. “It seems awful unusual, the way Mrs. Spring is here on her own in such a fine house, with the agent managing the estate. Where is her husband? You’d think she’d prefer to be in London.”

  “Oh, she would,” Roisin said, plunging the linens deep with a wooden paddle. “She’d be off to London in a flash if she could. She keeps a brave face on it most of the time, but in truth, she hates it here. She’s miserable.”

  Roisin stopped in her work and stood straight for a moment to look at Ginny. “I say too much,” she corrected herself.

  “Not at all,” Ginny answered, taking the paddle from the older woman, and pitching the linens herself. “I’d never breathe a word of it, you needn’t worry about me. I’m only interested. It seems so curious, a man leaving his wife here on her own in these times.” And as soon as she said it, she thought of Raymond, and blushed. “I’m sure they have their reasons.”

  “Oh, he has his reasons, all right,” Roisin tutted, as she started loading the table linens into the second boiler. “It’s easier for him to carry on with his other women if his eccentric wife is tucked well out of the way, at the end of nowhere in the west of Ireland.”

  Roisin paused and went to the door, opened it to look out. All was quiet beyond. She closed it, and returned to their work.

  “Mrs. Spring never comes down the stairs,” she said. “Still, it would be just my luck.”

  “Did you ever meet him?” Ginny asked. “Mr. Spring?”

  “When they first came here four years ago, I did. I was the first one they hired in, before Murdoch, even. Mrs. Spring took a shine to me straightaway,” she said. “I don’t suppose she’d yet given up on him when they arrived. She was hoping for a baby, I reckon.”

  Roisin reached for a second wooden paddle, her face already pink and sticky with sweat. “And who knows? Maybe a child could have saved the marriage,” she said, leaning into her work. “But I don’t suppose we’ll ever know. After just one summer, he abandoned her here, went back to London on his own.”

  “How do you mean abandoned? Surely she could’ve gone with him?”

  “No.” Roisin shook her head. “He never gave her the chance. I didn’t know he was going—no one did. Perhaps Murdoch. He left her a letter.”

  Ginny stopped churning her paddle and stared at Roisin. “He never.”

  “He did,” Roisin said. “Just up and left, in the middle of the night. Didn’t even tell her good-bye.”

  “Bastard.”

  “Nearly four years ago,” Roisin said. “He’s never been back. Hardly even writes.”

  “The poor woman.”

  “Sure if she wasn’t mad in the head before that, who could blame her for coming a bit undone after?”

  They worked on for a while in silence, and Ginny thought about Alice Spring. It was hard to imagine she had anything in common with a rich Englishwoman like her, and Ginny knew that Raymond had left because he loved her, he loved their family. He hadn’t abandoned them at all; on the contrary, he had gone to save them—precisely for that. But he was gone, all the same, and Ginny knew how that felt. She knew the terror of lonesomeness and longing. While they worked, Ginny listened for any sign of Seán, for his footstep on the stair above. She was desperate for news of her babbies. There was no sign of him all day.

  That
night, she sought him out again, and found him in the stables playing cards with some of the other young fellas. They whistled and catcalled when he excused himself to join her, but Seán told them to shut their gobs.

  “Well?” Ginny asked him, as soon as they were outside the door.

  “They’re grand, Ginny,” he said. “Maire looks just like you, except with the fair hair. She’s gorgeous. And smart. She wouldn’t let me in, at first.”

  Ginny stood back and crossed her arms in front of her. She rested them on her bump. “How do you mean?”

  “I knocked on the door, and she shouted out to me, she said, ‘We have no food, and there’s fever in this house, so you’re best to move along down the road!’”

  “She didn’t!”

  “She did, and when I told her I wasn’t looking for a handout, and I was a friend of her mother’s, she interrogated me before she would open the door.”

  “What did she ask you?”

  “How I knew you, where I came from, what was your mother’s Christian name. Jesus, Ginny, it’s lucky I have a good memory.”

  “Clever girl.” Ginny smiled.

  “She is,” he agreed. “She’s doing a fine job looking after the little ones, and they tore into the food you sent. They were well fed.”

  “Thank God,” Ginny said. “And thank you.”

  “Ah, it’s nothing.”

  “It’s everything.”

  He stuffed his hands into his pockets. “I told them I’d be back tomorrow, I’d try to come every other night, so make sure you pack extra, Ginny. Give them two days’ worth.”

  “I will,” she said. “Grand.”

  • • •

  So that was how the rhythm started. How, by the grace of God and Seán Lyons, Ginny fell into the rituals and routine of saving the lives of her children. After a time, it began to feel normal, to be rent from them. When she prayed at night, she spent time trying to conjure their faces, the sweet and breathy timbre of their voices. With each passing day, that magic was harder to summon. She wanted to remember the way they’d been when they were happy, before the potato failed, before Raymond left.

  Days drew into weeks, and Seán became like a pivot in Ginny’s life. Everything turned around him. She would awaken in the morning, and the hours would stretch and unfurl toward him, until his brief appearance. And then at night, when he was gone back to her children, with the food she’d pilfered and packed them, she would climb the steps to her attic room, and lie awake, feeling the minutes unraveling until she could see him again. She would work all day, at the cooking and the washing and the serving. Throughout the day, she always looked for little gifts she could send to her children along with the food. Whenever she could, she tucked in a bluebell for Maire, or a smooth stone for Maggie. Ginny lived for those night-bright minutes with Seán, when he brought news of home: Poppy still cried sometimes, missing her mammy, but mostly she was very brave, and her curly hair was getting longer and fuller. Maggie had started a second cairn now, on the far side of the cottage, for Ginny. It was easier for her to tend the cairns now that the weather was beginning to hint toward spring. And Michael had stepped up to help, now that his parents were both gone. Maire was well pleased with him. The children all worked together to prepare the turnip patch for planting, and they were wanting seed for it, so when the time came, Ginny gave Seán all of her paltry wages.

  “I don’t know if it’s enough, if you’ll get any seed with that.”

  “Don’t worry, Ginny,” he said to her. “I’ll get it.”

  It was May, and Ginny’s stomach swelled properly. There was still no word from Raymond, and her terror over that grew by degrees, like Maggie’s stone sculptures, like her own round belly. She asked Seán to send Michael to see Father Brennan, for to write a second letter to Kevin in New York.

  She was on guard against contentment, in case that same willful forgetfulness, that refusal to bear witness, that she’d noticed when she first came into Springhill House would invade her own mind as well. Now that her children were safe, at least for the time being, she didn’t want to forget the suffering of her neighbors, the real and acute starvation beyond the gate. But the absence of her family was reminder enough, her isolation from them a sort of secondary starvation.

  Ginny saw little of Mrs. Spring, and thankfully, even less of Murdoch. She worked mostly in the kitchen and the laundry with Roisin, but she cleaned the upper chambers as well, and one late afternoon, when her belly had grown heavy enough to sway her back, Mrs. Spring noticed, and had Ginny installed in one of the empty bedchambers not far from her own. There was an enormous four-poster bed that Roisin helped make up, and a domed ceiling above. The walls were covered in striped silk, and heavy swaths of gold fabric hung from the tall windows. There was a cheerful fireplace at the foot of the bed, all dressed with dancing plaster angels. Roisin brought up a pail of turf and set it beside the hearth. Ginny watched her companion’s face for signs of resentment, but there wasn’t a trace of it. They stood by the window together, and Roisin lifted and patted Ginny’s hand.

  “Strange,” Ginny said, “the thought of sleeping in a room like this.”

  Roisin released the drapes from their belts, shook them loose, and helped Ginny pull them across the darkening windows. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Roisin said. “Has always been one of my favorite rooms in the house. I love the stripes.” Roisin touched the silk on the wall.

  “It is,” Ginny said, and she sank down on the edge of the bed. “I’m grateful. Still and all, I’d rather be at home in my own poor cottage with my Ray.”

  Roisin swept across the room to where Ginny sat. “He’ll be along any day now, dear,” Roisin said, looking at Ginny’s belly.

  “I reckon that’s right.” Ginny took Roisin’s hand in her own, and placed it low on her bump, so she might feel the baby kick.

  “Oh!” Roisin said. “And strong. Brilliant! He can help with the cleaning.” She clapped her hands, and they both laughed.

  Ginny slept well in the room, her spirits encouraged by the amiability of the turf fire. Mrs. Spring watched her day by day, the brightness in her gaze trained always on Ginny’s growing belly. Mrs. Spring insisted that Ginny take it easy, but for her part, Ginny kept working, worried about what might happen when the baby was born. She couldn’t allow herself to become burdensome in this house. She would have to spring back on her feet, get back to work in haste. She would have to mind the baby easily. She prayed to God for an easy birth, an easy child. Maire had been difficult, but she cleared the way for the others, and all of Ginny’s children since had practically walked out. It was nearly three years now since her last baby was born, slipping out so fast that Ray joked, when he first held that baby girl in his arms, that she had popped out like a cork from a bottle. So they christened her Pauline, but they only ever called her Poppy.

  On her knees at night, Ginny prayed, “Please God, give me another Poppy.”

  • • •

  Ginny was in the cold larder, preparing a basket for Seán to take to the children, when her water broke. She found herself standing in a spreading lamplit puddle.

  “No, no, no, no, no,” she said. “Not yet. Not yet.”

  And she swayed from hip to hip, to ease the cramps, while she finished packing the food. She left the basket down on the kitchen worktable, and went to the laundry room for some rags. She had to clean up the puddle first, so no one would suspect that she’d been down in the larder raiding food when the baby started to come. She was a few minutes late meeting Seán at their usual spot.

  “What kept you?” he asked, as he leaned down from his saddle to take the basket from her. He never took the carriage on these night runs, only the horse on her own. Ginny winced, and Seán leapt down from the saddle, nearly tumbled the basket of food. “The baby’s coming, is it?” he asked.

  Ginny bobbed her head, breathed thro
ugh the cramp, as deep and fresh as she could. Seán turned in circles. “I’ll go for . . . a . . . Here.” He turned around again. “What am I supposed to do?”

  Ginny felt her muscles relax as the cramp eased. She laughed. “You’re not meant to do anything, just the same as you always do. You take the food to the children,” she said. “I’ll have the baby.”

  He nodded his head, and the horse mimicked him. They were both dipping and waggling like puppets in the moonlight. Seán threw his leg up and over the saddle, and Ginny watched from below, shifting her weight in circles over her loosening hips. This baby would come fast. Seán turned his mare in a circle above her.

  “Godspeed, Ginny, never worry about a thing,” he said. “If you’re off your feet for a few days, I’ll mind out for them, I’ll take care.” He leaned down from his saddle and Ginny squeezed his hand.

  “I know you will.”

  “Are you sure you’re all right there, Ginny?” he said. “You can make it back to the house on your own?”

  “I’ll be grand,” she said. “And Seán?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Tell Maire that I love her.”

  • • •

  The baby didn’t pop out, exactly, but he did arrive in style, on pressed bed linens in a grand four-poster bed in that stripy, silky room, attended by Roisin, and Mrs. Alice Spring herself. Before dawn lightened the windows of Springhill House, baby Raymond Doyle was born. And he brought with him a great festive, joyful feeling that glowed on the faces of all the women in that house—Ginny was sure of it—not only on her own.

  Roisin stoked up the turf fire cheerily in the hearth, even though Ginny and the baby were both drenched with sweat. He went to the breast straightaway, and Mrs. Spring couldn’t take her eyes from him. She sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the mother and new child, her lips parted in a smile. She kept repeating herself.

  “Oh, isn’t he lovely? Isn’t he the loveliest little thing? Look at the size of him, he’s so small,” Alice Spring said, over and over again. She watched him eat.